Egyptians spend fourteen times as much on food as they do on smoking each year, reveals a new survey, cited by Al Akhbar Arabic daily.

Total Egyptian annual expenditures on food and beverages was 56 billion pounds ($14.2b) last year, according to the Central Agency for Surveys and Statistics, compared to four billion on smoking.

Housing and related items cost the Egyptians 7.18 billion pounds; clothes and textile 8.12 billion; and transport and communications 2.7 billion, the head of the agency, Gen. Ehab Ulwi, told the paper on Tuesday.

Ulwi said the data was obtained by studying the incomes, expenditures and consumption of 226,000 consumers nationwide in the period 1999-2000.